According to medical astrology, birch is a tree favorable to people born under the constellation of Cancer, that is, from June 22 to July 23. It strengthens the body's resistance in these people.
Try to relax at least once a week in a birch forest. In addition to clean air and beautiful scenery, the plants in the birch forest will have a positive energetic effect on you and give you new psychic powers. Plants, and first of all trees, affect first of all people who realize the unity of all living things in the world, who understand and love nature.
Happy is the man who loves trees, big, free, growing away from human care. Everything wild, natural is closer to the universe, it more purely breathes in the spiritual rhythm of the infinite. That is why you feel inexpressible joy in the forest, in the steppe, where there is no trace of human culture. We absorb healing forces, continuously flowing from trees, plants, rivers, streams, lakes and seas, from all varieties of infinite Nature. It is the life-giving force that flows out of all living things. Happy is the man who deeply and devotedly loves trees and plants, birds and animals as his equals, knowing that they too give him precious things for his love.
Choose a large, branching birch tree and walk around it. Feel sympathy and goodwill toward her. Get close enough to her to feel her most strongly. Stand near a birch tree and mentally merge your body and soul with it. Feel the roots of the birch tree, the movement of the sap from the ground up the trunk and the spreading of the sap through the leaves of the crown. Then feel how the energy of the Cosmos descends down through the air and rushes down through the leaves and trunk into the roots under the ground. This is how the circulation between Heaven and Earth and their interchange takes place. After that, connect yourself to this exchange by identifying with the birch tree and experience the movement of the upward and downward energy in yourself. In this way you can treat yourself from headaches, from petty squabbles, worries, worries. You will walk away from the birch tree "washed up" physically and mentally. Feel the leaves on the birch stroking your hair, stroke its trunk with your hand, lean against the trunk, stand like this for a few minutes, feel the crown with your head. When leaving, don't forget to thank the birch tree, feel tenderness to it as to the dearest person for you.
The phytoncides of birch are excellent for stimulating the human respiratory system. Inhaling the soothing volatile substances of birch is especially beneficial for children. Inhalation of odorous substances of young birch leaves - an excellent prevention of overstrain of the central nervous system.
The genus name Betula comes from the Latin word beatus (happy, blessed) and is apparently associated with the state of a person who drank the life-giving birch sap in spring. According to other information, the name comes from the Celtic betu - birch.
The Russian word "birch" is very ancient. In Indo-European languages, the word "birch" was an adjective and meant - "light" and "white". Apparently, it is common not only to all Slavic, but also to many Indo-European languages and goes back to the concept of "white" (by the unusual color of tree bark).
Birch is one of the main images of folk art. In folk songs, fairy tales, legends, the birch is a symbol of spring and homeland. The favorite tree was endowed with the most affectionate epithets. She was called slender, curly, thin, white, fragrant, cheerful. Often it is a young girl in a green headscarf, and it is always a positive heroine: the keeper of folk treasures, the enchanted beauty, the wise peasant daughter, winning in a duel with evil forces.
There are countless sayings, proverbs, riddles associated with the birch:
White birch bark is black tar.
Even a birch tree is a threat to the enemy.
Green rather than meadow, white rather than snow, curly rather than head.
I'll climb the mountain, I'll oderu telushka, lard in my mouth, and skin away
In the ancient corpus of customs and conspiratorial words, the birch takes an honorable place. On Holy Thursday (Holy Week), birch leaves were used to dye eggs. These eggs were believed to help with thinness and dementia. Russ has long known how to attract birds to fields and houses. In March we hung birdhouses in the trees. They knew that it was the houses made of birch bark that starlings were most willing to inhabit. The birch bark keeps the birds safe from cold and damp.
In the old days, the Slavs began the year in spring, not in winter, so it was met not with spruce, but with birch. At this time the peasants started agricultural work. In the spring, birch groves were cut down, and therefore the arrival of spring was "angry to the birches". Because spring came at different times in the south and north, birch bark was called March in the south and April in the north. Berezol-March was the first month of the year until the 15th c. Since then the Russian calendar has been reorganized, the name has been retained in Ukrainian, where March is called berezn. In Russia, on April 11, they went to the forests and "listened to the birch" (weaved wreaths of fresh branches, drank birch sap), about which they said: "There is a tree, the color is green. In this tree there are four sites: the first is for the sick to be healthy, the second is a well for people, the third is a light from winter, the fourth is a swaddling for the decrepit".
Birch sap was used to drink the sick, purify the blood, drive diseases out of the body.
In folk omens, the birch is closely associated with agriculture.
There is a lot of sap flowing from the birch tree - to a rainy summer.
If the birch tree before the alder tree spreads its leaves, the summer will be dry, if the alder tree before - wet. They believed that alder was a relative of birch.
If on Yurya a birch leaf is half a cup, then by the Dormition put bread in a cadushka.
When the birch tree starts to blossom, these oats.
When the birch tree turns green, covered with sticky triangles of leaves, it means that it is time to open buds on cherry, apple and pear trees. It's time for people to plant potatoes in their gardens.
On the 50th day after Easter came Trinity, a feast in honor of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Russia, this holiday is associated with the cult of the birch and was called Semik (Semitskaya birch). The birch was perceived as a living, powerful creature, capable of fulfilling wishes. Its branches were used to weave a wreath. The girls believed they would bind tightly their thoughts about the guy they loved. Or, curling the branches of a birch tree, they wished their mother a speedy recovery. The healing power of birch branches and leaves increased on this day. In Semik birch branches protected the huts of our ancestors from all kinds of evil spirits Until now on Trinity in the grooves of the corners of the house in the Vologda region peasants stick birch branches in the grooves of the house in order to purity and healing spirit passed to the walls. Semik is Thursday. It was Thursday that was the day that foretold what was to come. If the curled birch branches have not wilted for these days, then the planned will definitely happen.
On Trinity Day, shepherds in the pasture weaved wreaths from birch trees, one of which they put on the cow's horns. She wore it all day. The second wreath of birch trees was given by the shepherd to the hostess in the evening. The first wreath was fed to the cow to give her more milk, and the second wreath was saved in case of cow's illness - then branches from it were also added to the fodder.
The girls walked to the birch groves. But they knew that it was necessary to pick and tie tightly at the collar of the shirt in a rag bitter herb wormwood, so that mermaids did not lead into the river depths, did not twist in a mermaid's round dance. Girls wove wreaths from birch branches, and then went to the river and, standing with their backs to the water, threw the wreaths off their heads. It was bad if the wreath went down. It meant that the girl would die this year, or so would fade into oblivion what she dreamed of. And if the wreath molted to the other shore, it was a sign that the maiden's love would take root, "attach" to the heart of any guy.
It was believed that the favorite pastime of mermaids was swinging on the branches of a birch tree. The mermaids swayed on the branches of birches and looked longingly in the direction of the girls' roundelays. It is strange, but they had to enjoy these days and herbs, and flowers, and all earthly beauty, and maybe these days were the only possible to conceive a child from a strong, healthy guy, and not from cold river streams.
Mermaids were accomplices in maiden fortune-telling. The girls carried eggs and pies into the forest, spread a towel under a tree, and spread the brought food under a birch tree. Around this birch tree they used to drive "circles". Not just a round dance, but specifically "circles". Spell and brought food, and their thoughts, and good God's light, and blooming nature symbolized this rite. Eggs are the essence of fertility, revealed by the girls themselves in front of the fire. The shells were not thrown away, but stacked on a pole under the vault of the furnace mouth. It was then burnt and finely ground in a mortar. The shells crushed in Semik were famous for their healing properties. It was believed that the girl who would sit in the shade of a birch tree would definitely get married this year. On Peter's Day mermaids were seen off, wreaths were developed and thrown into the water.
July 1 is the peak of summer. If at noon on the top of summer, if you braid birch branches in a circle, not young, but strong, matured, then through this circle, standing near the river lowland, you can see "loved ones, unknown where leaning. Went to the battlefield, which in the old days was called "the field of honor", from all over Russia to defend their native land husbands, brothers, fiancés, sisters of mercy. Not all were destined to return to their homes. And not come, lost in the far distance, for whom the hearts of women longed, could, according to popular belief, to see, mentally cover herbs, to bless with a hand.
August 4 - Marya Surovitsa, the dewy window. The grass is dewy before noon on this day, and according to popular belief, you can't walk barefoot in the dew. On this day sweep the windows with a birch broom, prepared in advance or left from the Trinity. So many cobwebs have taken root in the platbands over the summer. It is necessary to sweep away this cobweb, to illuminate one's life with Marya's light. Mary's light is at its strongest on this day.
In autumn inclement weather there are seven weathers in the yard: it sows, winds, twists, torrid, pours from above, rages and blizzards from below.
When a leaf falls cleanly from a birch tree, a light year awaits cattle and people.
Late leaf fall - to a harsh and prolonged winter.
On September 18, chased from the village of Kumokha. Kumokha walks around in rags and causes trouble. According to folk belief, she is big-eyed, but her face is thin, her skin is blue. Kumokha is an unclean force. In the village on September 18, the bathhouse is often heated in the evening. Birch broom is whipped on the bent backs, do not let Kumokha, as well as the autumn dampness, bend people in the fall weather.
In the olden days, the wind that stripped the trees bare, to the bones of the peasant, on the threshold of the house coldly, fiercely rose, called pazdernik. It doesn't just bare the trees, it strips the leaves off the branches. October-Pazdernik is a month of variable weather, a month of special signs of the coming winter. And if a leaf from a birch tree falls cleanly, it portends a cold winter. The leaf "face", that is, the smooth side will lie on the ground - this is a portent of poor harvest. And when the leaf lies shaggy, concave side to the ground, as if carefully covering it, the peasants know that the winter crops will not freeze in winter.
November 4 - Kazan. Kazanskaya was called a zimotvornaya. There was a belief: when a girl thought that she did not have a face, that's why she was not in love, she tried to get up early on Kazanskaya and ran to the birch grove. I was looking for a leaf that hung low on a birch tree, wrapped in frost. And he was like a silver mirror that morning. If you look into a sheet like this, you'll see all the ugliness fall off your face. And the truth, glanced in the mirror created by nature, ran back to the village quite different. For faith - it saves!
Since ancient times people have been using utensils made of birch bark - birch bark. Such utensils keep food from getting cold. It is not permeable to water or air. In winter, in the bitterest frosts, water does not freeze in birch bark dishes. Unlike many trees, the birch tree perfectly tolerates any frost. Even after placing birch branches in a chamber where temperatures close to absolute zero (-273°C) reign, they turned out to be quite viable.
In total, there are about 120 species of birch on Earth, of which about 65 are found in our country. The birch tree is very prolific and has seed harvests every year. The small (the size of a millet grain) seed-nuts have two rounded wings, twice the size of the nut itself. Here and fly such "airplanes" a kilometer and farther from home, besides they germinate well. That is why birch settles "bare" spaces faster than conifers, which have fewer seeds and do not harvest every year. Birch is unpretentious to soil fertility and grows quickly, that is why it becomes a pioneer in settling forestless areas, forming a "white taiga". However, not all birch trees have the traditional white appearance. Some have yellow, pink, bright orange, dark purple and even black bark coloring on the trunk and branches. One of the most remarkable, the iron birch or Schmidt's birch, with unusually hard and heavy wood, more durable in articles than metal, grows in the Far East and Kamchatka. Its trunk cannot be sawed, only cut down by changing axes. The iron birch lives up to 400 years, while most other birches are less than 120 years old. And, of course, everyone has heard about the patterned wood of Karelian birch, which is called vegetable marble.
Birch lives everywhere: in the swamp and on stony mountains, on sandy hills and on lean land, on places burned by fire, and among the stumps of felled trees.
Astronomical amounts of birch pollen and spores hit the ground in the summer. One branch of a birch tree about 10 years old produces up to 100 million dust particles.
A lot of interesting things can be said about the representatives of the birch family, but we will return to the beauty of our forests, snow-white birch, which received from botanists not poetic name - warty. And all this is because its young twigs are covered with small resinous glands, similar to warts. Only a keen observer can notice them. However, recently this species of birch has received another, more euphonious name - birch hanging. It is listed as one of the most precious folk medicine remedies.
In terms of biological activity, other varieties of birch do not differ very markedly, so they too can be used for medicinal purposes.
The hanging birch is a tree that reaches a height of 20 meters. The bark of young birch trees is white, peeling off in transverse strips, while that of old birch trees is dark gray or black. Young twigs are brown, shiny, and covered with warts. The buds are ovate-lanceolate, the scales are ciliate along the edges. Leaves are petiolate, oblong-rhombic, entire-edged at the petiole, sharply and doubly serrate in the rest part. Male and female flowers in separate earrings. Female earrings are solitary, half as short as male earrings, and sit on short lateral shoots. Male earrings are gathered in a brush of 2-4 at the ends of the branches. The fruit is a broad-winged seed. It blooms in late April-early May at the same time as the leaves blossom. Fruits ripen from August-September to mid-winter. Birch in the mixed forest zone is often the main forest forming species. Birch forests are the third most widespread in our country after pine and larch forests.
Folk wisdom has long been able to appreciate the remarkable healing properties of birch. Already in herbalists of the 16th-17th centuries. You can find instructions on how to use birch leaves and buds, birch bark, called birch bark, and birch sap. Modern medicine has also recognized the wide therapeutic possibilities of birch..
